I haven’t learned to stop walking on eggshells around angry people

As soon as I walked into his office today, I could tell that this normally happy person was in a foul mood. He was snappy and there was something in the air that felt dangerous to me.

I could feel my heart start racing slightly. I felt mild panic. This guy wasn’t angry with me. His dark mood had nothing to do with me. But I immediately shifted gears inside. Instead of a confident adult dealing with another adult, I felt like a child who needed to placate an angry person — so I wouldn’t “get in trouble.”

I was walking on eggshells once again.

I was there less than half an hour, but I spent the entire time trying to break through his bad mood and cheer him up. It wasn’t just that I was trying to help him. I was playing the role I learned with my father. I was desperately trying to stem the anger of a volatile man — before he exploded on me.

When you grow up with an angry parent, you develop a sixth sense about how to act to protect yourself. That was my experience anyway. I didn’t consciously decide to do this. It was just a survival skill for me, so it took me years to realize other people didn’t develop that sense in the same was I did.

It’s been three months since my father died. I sometimes forget that he’s dead and I briefly worry that he’s going to come to my house again or show up at work to confront me. I still dream about confrontations with him and wake up relieved to realize he’s dead.

But even though he’s gone, the patterns he taught me are still there. Some will probably always be with me. For instance, I’ll probably always get nervous around confrontation — constantly afraid that an authority figure is going to scream at me or hurt me.

But in one small way, I realized this week that his death has brought a small sense of relief about a long-running sense of guilt I’ve had — about doing anything well or about being recognized for some success.

All my life, I’ve wanted attention. Needed attention. I was starved for attention.

That might sound awful, but I think the truth is that I desperately needed someone to give me praise and validation. Mother wasn’t around and my father’s validation always came with “terms and conditions.” His approval was always conditional.

Whenever I did something that got attention for myself — at school, at church, at work, whatever — I felt guilty. I felt guilty for being successful and having people give me praise. I never understood until recently why I felt that way.

I felt guilty because my father was jealous of the attention I got. When it happened, he tried hard to inject himself into the conversation. “I taught him everything he knows,” was one of his common phrases. He would have said it was a joke — and there was certainly no truth to his joke — but he was jealous of the praise I got. I still don’t understand that.

He didn’t like attention, at least that’s what he said. He didn’t act as though he was seeking attention. But he wanted praise. He wanted adoration. He wanted to be told he was great.

He was jealous of the attention his only son got.

I wanted to enjoy the praise and accolades I received, but I was always on edge — always watching for his reaction, always hoping he would be genuinely proud of me instead of taking the attention for himself.

I just realized this week that I don’t feel guilty anymore. He’s not here to be jealous. He can no longer cause those horrible mixed feelings anymore. And that’s a relief.

The little boy in me needed attention, but that little boy also wanted to please his father. I wanted to make him proud of me — but I knew his words didn’t match the feelings he projected toward me.

Maybe now I can finally accept attention and praise without feeling that I’m doing something wrong — and maybe that will finally help to satisfy the long unmet needs.

When I did things in life that I was proud of, I wanted his praise. I knew I wouldn’t get it the way I wanted. I knew anything positive he said in front of others would be offset by private criticism — about how I could have done better if I’d done things his way.

I still need someone to be proud of me. Is that terrible? I don’t think so. I think we all need someone to recognize our work and our achievements — and give us praise.

When I love a woman, I’m incredibly proud of her and want to give her praise and let other people know how wonderful I think she is. That’s part of loving someone, at least to me. I’d like the same from a woman. I’d like someone to be proud of me and tell me I’ve done well.

I’ll never be able to change the fact I could never be good enough for him. I might never be able to change the fact that I walk on eggshells around certain angry and dysfunctional people.

But I think I can finally accept genuine praise and find happiness in the success I want — without feeling guilty for taking the spotlight from him.

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What if your daughter were about to start kindergarten and you went to the affluent school where she was about to go and discovered that the school was teaching nonsense? That’s exactly what happened to an education consultant in Colorado who recently visited his daughter’s new school. Everybody was nice, but when the kindergarten teacher talked about their methods of teaching reading, he cringed. She was using “progressive” methods that were debunked decades ago. He’s learning that most schools use similar techniques that don’t work, simply because schools of education are committed to ideas and techniques based on ideology instead of cognitive science. So why do so many people entrust their children’s future to these well-meaning but incompetent people? It’s one of the most underreported scandals of modern learning. Read his summary of what he’s found here and then check out the radio documentary to which he refers where you can find out more.

I really enjoy political satire. You might remember that my first short film was political satire. But there’s a trend in political satire today which I find disturbing — and this graphic is a great example. This fake promotional ad for Fox News was placed on New York City subways recently. When I found it on social media, people who lean to the political left were smirking and enjoying this attack on their “stupid” opponents. But this isn’t satire. It’s just a mean-spirited attempt to say, “Those who agree with me are smarter than you idiots who watch Fox News.” It’s a smirking, nasty attack which makes no point other than to claim superiority over people for the sin of disagreeing. I absolutely loathe Fox News, but I also loathe CNN and MSNBC and all the other media outfits who pander to partisans and intentionally try to divide people. If you want to show that you’re a small-minded bigot who doesn’t understand his opponents, just pretend your enemies are all stupid and evil. They’re not. The truth is a lot more complicated. Ideas are ripe for satire, but that involves creative thinking, not just nasty personal attacks.

When I have a bad day, my first reaction is to want to turn to someone I love. But my next instinct is a paradox. If I can’t call someone and I can’t touch someone and I can’t be with someone who loves me, I have an overwhelming desire to be alone. Tuesday was an unpleasant day. I had to argue with my bank about something. (I won, but still.) Something happened at work that made me want to walk out and never return, although I understand that nobody else involved would understand. Tonight, someone on Facebook who I barely knew reacted badly to something I said — for reasons I’m completely baffled about — and called me a “jackass” and unfriended me. I’d like to talk with someone I love. I’d like to spend time with a loved one and feel safe and understood. But since I can’t do that, I crave the opposite. I want to find a cabin somewhere and disappear for a month. We humans are social creatures. We need each other. But there are days when others cause enough hurt that a few weeks of silence would be a relief. This has been one of those days.

Democracy is going to die — and it’s all because the human brain prefers easy answers to complex problems. You and I were born during the golden age of democracy. It was a period during which it was assumed that democracy was the natural evolution of civic governance. But Dr. Shawn W. Rosenberg is challenging that idea. He’s a leader in the study of political psychology and he says research convinces him that the human brain isn’t wired for self-rule and that democracy is heading toward collapse. In a paper presented this year to the International Society of Political Psychologists, Rosenberg argues that the human brain naturally favors simple answers to complex problems, which tends to favor the rise of authoritarian strongmen who offer confident and simplistic solutions. Anyone who’s paying attention sees this happening around the world already. Donald Trump isn’t the cause of the problem, but he is an early example of this outcome in action. All authoritarian rulers come to power offering simplistic solutions — just as Adolph Hitler did in Germany and Benito Mussolini did in Italy. I’ve argued for 20 years that this country is heading toward social and economic collapse and I’ve made the case that things are going to get ugly when that happens, at least for those who are not prepared. Many people will ignore this evidence, of course, because they have too much emotionally invested in the idea that democracy will prevail — but that is just another example of clinging to a simple answer to a very complex problem. Don’t be surprised when things get ugly.

Political candidates are liars. They can’t help it, because lying to voters is the only thing that gets them elected. They have to promise things which are not possible. I used to write political promises for my clients, so I know this very well. None of my successful clients ever did anything which I promised for them. Every day lately, I see new promises from presidential candidates. I know they’re lying about what they will do if elected — and I assume they know they’re lying, too. When a society changes, the change starts from culture — and that starts with the values which individuals hold. I hate many things about this society. I want a lot of changes. When I was young, I believed the way to change those things was by becoming a political leader. I know better today. We live like hamsters on a wheel or rats in a maze. Government can’t change that. Only we can make those changes for ourselves. The next time you hear a politician promising to change your life — your work life or your home life or your children’s future — remember that the person is lying. Don’t wait for politicians. Take the initiative and change your own life. Nobody else can do it for you.

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